[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 81 (Thursday, June 23, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 23, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                       JACQUELINE KENNEDY ONASSIS

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, ``Many women do noble things, but you 
surpass them all,'' writes the author of Proverbs, chapter 31. The life 
of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was a life of nobility, in the finest 
sense of the word. She elevated a nation, especially so during a time 
of great crisis, and now that she is gone, we keenly feel the loss, as 
if a member of our family had passed away.
  What is especially poignant about her life is that she never sought 
the kind of fame she attained. Rather, it was thrust upon her, first 
through marriage to a Senator with a growing national reputation. Then 
as First Lady, when Senator John F. Kennedy became president. But 
Jacqueline Kennedy was not content to simply suffer the limelight she 
never wanted. She went to work, in public ways and private, to the 
benefit of all the American people. She transformed the White House 
from a place to a national treasure; from an address to a destination. 
Its beauty today and through the ages to come are due in no small 
measure to Jackie Kennedy's sense of history, art and style.
  Perhaps most important, Jacqueline Kennedy held a nation together at 
a time when the tragedy of John Kennedy's assassination threatened to 
pull us apart. Minutes after holding her dying husband in her lap, she 
stood by the side of the new President, as he was sworn into office, 
symbolizing the peaceful continuity of democracy that is at the heart 
of America's greatness. And in the difficult days that followed, the 
First Lady not only bore herself with grace and strength, she directed 
the funeral that will be remembered throughout history for its power, 
emotion, and meaning.
  In the years since the triumph and tragedy of the presidency of John 
Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis dedicated her life to what she 
would probably consider her greatest accomplishment: loving and raising 
two wonderful children, whose own lives carry on the legacy of service 
exemplified by John and Jackie Kennedy.
  The life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is in itself a profile in 
courage, and a grateful nation will never forget her courage and all 
that she meant to us. ``Give her the reward she has earned,'' it says 
in Proverbs 31, ``and let her works bring her praise at the city 
gate.''

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